Houston radio legend Bill Young remembered by friends, co-workers

This isn’t exactly a sports topic, but it does involve radio, so I’m posting it here. It’s an expanded version of a story that appeared in the print edition of Monday’s Chronicle.

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Bill Young, who helped assemble a legendary on-air staff as program director at KILT (610 AM) during the 1960s and ’70s and later became an innovative trendsetter in radio advertising and concert promotion, died Saturday after a lengthy illness. He was 74.

Young was KILT’s program director from 1966 through 1981, working with such local favorites as Chuck Dunaway, Barry Kaye, Beau Weaver, Mark Stevens, Jim Pruett, Randy Hames and Fred Olson (the longest-running Hudson and Harrigan duo) and newsman Jim Carola and R.B. McEntire.

After leaving the station, he founded Bill Young Productions in Sugar Land, which continues as one of the industry’s leaders in live entertainment promotion.

In both venues, he was remembered Sunday for creativity, leadership and his signature sound.

“The big, booming voice of God was Bill’s,” said Mike McBath, CEO of Bill Young Productions. “That’s what people remember.”

Young was born in Honey Grove and grew up in Hudson, near Lufkin. He began his radio career as a teenager at KRBA and KTRE in Lufkin and worked at WACO-AM in Waco, KOIL-AM in Omaha, Neb., and KDOK-AM in Tyler, where his protégées included future stars Jimmy Rabbitt,CQ Randy Robins and Steve Lundy, before he was hired in 1966 at Gordon McLendon’s powerhouse KILT.

“He had an innate ability to lead in a quiet way,” said Dunaway. “And he created a unique style of doing commercials and used production skills that none of us had ever seem.”

Young “had a voice like nobody else” and a nose for developing talent, said McEntire, who grew up listening to Young in his hometown of Lufkin.

“I looked at the staff that he put together at KILT and didn’t think I belonged, but he said, ‘I hear something in you, and if you will let me work with you, I think you’ll be fine,’” McEntire sad. “He taught us that you have to work at being creative and being able to turn up the thermostat another notch.”

Coworkers said Young’s signature production wrinkles included overlapping and multi-tracked voices that soon became the industry standard.

“He would take a 40-second commercial, cut out the breath breaks and get it down to 30 seconds,” Carola said. “He could go deeper, higher, faster and quicker.”

After leaving KILT, Young built his production company by specializing in concert advertising for Beaver Productions in New Orleans and Louie Messina’s Pace Concerts, said company president Steve Kelly.

“He would contract with the promoter to do the (ads) and then deliver them overnight to stations around the country,” Kelly said. “He changed the business with that concept.”

A member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, Young directed more than a hundred music videos for George Strait, Clay Walker, Clint Black and others. He also for many years delivered newscast voiceovers for KTRK (Channel 13).

“He was always thinking, always fine-tuning to be No. 1 in the market and No. 1 and the hearts and minds of the listeners,” Pruett said.

Survivors include his wife, Sharon; two sons, Eric E. Young and William Scott Young; his sister, Judy Pippin; and two grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Second Baptist Church. The family has designated for memorials the Alpha-1 Foundation, www.alpha-1foundation.org. Tributes may be left at the website of Settegast-Kopf Funeral Home in Sugar Land.

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Some additional comments that did not make my original story:

Jim Carola: ”Bill was just so full of energy. We had a great team at KILT back then. We had a big bass tournament at Lake Conroe that involved everyone – the sale staff, the on-air staff – and Bill was very important in making that happen. He was a great guy to be around and a great radio guy.”

R.B. McEntire: I have the life I have today because of Bill Young. I was only a year out of Lufkin, working in Beaumont, when Bill called and asked if I wanted to work at KILT. If you lived in Texas, you wanted to work at KILT or one of the other McLendon stations. That showed me I finally was starting to get it a little bit.”

Chuck Dunaway: “Before Bill, we would go into the studio and record and splice (for commercials), but Bill would get in the studio and spend hours on a masterpiece of production. That is his biggest legacy. Even after I left Houston, I would hear a ZZ Top commercial and it obviously was Bill Young doing the voice.”

Jim Pruett: “He was always thining, always fine-tuning what we can do to better the product to better serve the community, to be No. 1 in the ratings but also to be No 1 in the hearts and minds of the people.

“One thing I remember is that after I started at KILT-FM, my son wanted a bulldog and I didn’t have the money to buy it for him. Bill forked over the money, and I bought the bulldog. I still owe him for that.

“Another story I remember concerns his dogs. We were having a meeting at his house in Sharpstown, and one of Bill’s dogs took a bite at one of the guys we called the Human Q-Tip. The guy left to get first aid and Bill looked over at us and said, ‘Dogs know.’”